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Colorado domestic violence gun bill renews "war on women" talk

By Tim HooverThe Denver Post

Posted:
03/09/2013 12:01:00 AM MST

Updated:
03/09/2013 12:54:35 AM MST

Senator Morgan Carroll, left, meets with Bill Cadman on the Senate floor. Debate begins on the Senate floor at the state capitol on various gun bills before the state legislature. (Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

Friday's debate in the Colorado Senate over guns also was the latest clash between Democrats and Republicans over who cares more about the safety of women.

This time, the flash point was Senate Bill 197, which bars people who have domestic-violence convictions or are subject to domestic-violence protection orders from having guns. The Senate gave the bill initial approval, and it still needs a recorded vote before it can go to the House.

"One of the gravest dangers a woman can face is an abuser with a gun," said Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, on Friday.

Hudak has been facing a barrage of criticism from Republicans over a comment she made to a rape victim Monday during a committee hearing on a bill that bans guns on college campuses.

When the woman who had been raped told the committee she could have prevented her attack with a concealed weapon, Hudak said, "Actually, statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun."

Hudak later apologized to the woman, but a firestorm had already started on Twitter and on conservative blogs.

"It does raise a question in a reasonable person's mind," he said. "Is this some sort of cover to deflect from their clear attack on the Second Amendment that makes young ladies less safe on college campuses?"

Hudak scoffed at the suggestion, pointing out she had filed the bill Feb. 27, a week before her comment.

"I have wanted to do this bill ever since that student of mine was found murdered," she said, referring to a young woman who was a victim of domestic violence whom Hudak knew when she was a college professor some years back.

Republicans also delivered compelling domestic-violence stories on the floor of the Senate on Friday.

Senate Minority Leader Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, told a gripping story about a family who lived on his block when he was a child where terrible domestic abuse took place.

Only later in the story did he reveal that the family was his.

"Do you know what it's like to watch your 10-year-old brother get beat by a screwdriver? I do," Cadman said. "Do you know what it's like to hear your mom scream from outside your house because she's naked? I do."

If Democrats really wanted to do something about domestic violence, Cadman said, they should lay the bill over until Monday. Then Republicans could work with them on it, he said.

Other Republicans complained of an 18-page amendment Democrats added to the bill on the floor and said there wasn't enough time to digest it.

But Hudak said there was no need for more time. She said the amendment was 18 pages only because it repeated the same language in multiple parts of the bill. The changes to the underlying bill were relatively minor, she said, and involved clarifying things such as how someone in jail would be able to surrender their firearms in domestic-abuse cases.

Under the bill, courts would be required to order anyone subject to a domestic-violence protection order or convicted of domestic violence to relinquish their guns within 24 hours. A judge could extend that to 72 hours.

The person who is ordered to relinquish the firearms could store them with a law enforcement agency or a federally licensed firearms dealer or sell or transfer them to someone else through a dealer.

The person relinquishing the guns also would have to show a receipt of relinquishment within three days to a court. The right to the guns could be restored after a protection order had been lifted.

Republicans said the bill would essentially amount to gun confiscation, forcing people to sell their guns for next to nothing if they can't find a firearms dealer or local sheriff willing to hold their guns. And because the law applies even in cases of protective orders, someone would have be forced to give up their guns even before being convicted of a crime, GOP senators said.

Supporters, though, said 19 other states have similar laws and it has worked in those places.

Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, who opposed the measure in committee, said the bill would not protect domestic-violence victims.

"There's so many ways they (abusers) can get around this," Lundberg said. "First off, they don't have to tell you where the guns are. If they intend violence, if they intend to continue the pattern of domestic violence, they're not going to tell where the guns are.

"Or they're going to find a baseball bat or they're going to find a knife."

Still, one pro-gun Democrat who has said she wouldn't support several other Democratic gun-control bills spoke in favor of Senate Bill 197.

"We are not talking about the 'he said, she said' (situations)," said Sen. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge. "This is not the 'He-threw-the-coffee-cup-at-the-wall-and-it-shattered.' We are talking about very serious circumstances. We are talking about stalking; we are talking about harassing."

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